Our Arbor's Homebirth

Even before becoming pregnant with Arbor, I knew that if at all possible, I wanted to have our next baby at home. Our birth with Henley began with quite a few unnecessary interventions and ended with an emergency cesarean (that’s for another blog post ;) ). After our experience, I knew that I would be most comfortable birthing at our home. Once we found I was pregnant, we began doing our research and had an initial interview with our midwife in our home where we addressed our concerns and she answered each of them humbly and confidently.

As 4o weeks came and went, I was having quite a few contractions but nothing that would continue or get stronger. At 41 weeks and 4 days, I had one of those weird pregnancy urges that you just can’t control and just HAD to mow the yard. I then began having consistent contractions a few hours later. I continued to have them throughout the night where I was able to sleep in 15 minute intervals. The next day, they kept up and I did my best to carry on as usual not really thinking it could be anything real- we even had a family birthday party for Henley that evening. After Henley and Andrew went to sleep, I was doing my best to get some sleep but I really wasn’t able to since I was woken every 15 minutes between falling into sleep. I decided that night I was either getting some sleep or have a baby! I searched online and found a move on the Spinning Babies website that would help engage a baby for labor. Within an hour of that, my contractions went from 15 minutes to 4 minutes apart!

I decided at that point that I MAY be in labor, so I woke Andrew up and called my midwife. I turned on the movie Baby Mama and was enjoying my labor! My midwife arrived about an hour later and asked if I would like to be checked since I seemed pretty comfortable at that point. I agreed and at that point, I was at a 7! Labor was like, so easy HAHA.

After an hour or so, my body went into transition and the contractions were hard, strong, and long. I had been laboring for quite a few hours when my midwife let me know that my body had a cervical lip that would not move. At this point I was feeling completely exhausted and my midwife was starting to become concerned that my body would begin to give up if I didn’t start pushing. My midwife held my cervix back while I pushed for 4 and a half hours. Ouch. At that point it was around 12:30 in the afternoon, I was so. stinking. tired. and in the shower yelling at Andrew to just grab a knife from the kitchen because I could NOT do it. My midwife, who’s typically super chill, looked at me and said in a stern voice, “that’s not how this works here. You are getting this baby out.” The doula gave me a spoonful of honey which gave me a burst of energy and then I told Andrew that I was done and getting this baby out!

On our bedroom floor, our Arbor Gray was born at 2:07pm in the beautiful sunshine. I found a position that felt right and my midwife looked at me and said “that position you’re in is pulling your cervix back enough for your baby to come down on her own. Your body knows what to do.” After about 20 minutes of pushing and allowing my baby to work her way down, I heard my midwife say, “reach down and grab your baby”. One of the most magical moments of my life. I will NEVER forget that moment. The sleepless nights of labor and hours and hours and contractions completely melted away in that moment. That birth high I had heard of was so real. Within just a few minutes we were snuggling in my bed and not much can beat that :)

Here are a few photos that Andrew was able to take while I was in labor and right after she was born. I don’t have much but I am forever grateful for these few photos that I have! They still bring tears to my eyes as I remember her entrance. We plan to hire a birth photographer for our upcoming birth as I see the value now more than ever!!